Practical writing experience is generally regarded as an effective method of developing writing skills. In this regard, literature pertaining to the teaching of writing suggests that conception of subject matter, arrangement and revision in essay writing may be improved through practice of essay writing. Furthermore, evaluation and feedback, specifically pointing out strong and weak areas in a students essay writing, may facilitate improvements in the student's writing abilities, specifically with regard to essay organization.
In traditional writing classes, students may be presented with a “revision checklist”. The revision checklist is intended to facilitate a process (i.e., the revision process) in which the student is asked to critically review their own work and identify areas needing improvement. Typically, this checklist is a list of questions posed to the student. These questions are intended to help the student reflect on the quality of their writing. For instance, the checklist might pose questions such as the following: a) Is the intention of the thesis statement clear?; b) Does the thesis statement respond directly to the essay question?; c) Are the main points in the essay clearly stated?; and d) Does the conclusion relate to the thesis statement? If these questions are expressed in such general terms, they may be of little help.
Instead, it may be most helpful if “discourse elements” within a student's essay are identified and presented to the student. Specific examples of discourse elements include: title, background, thesis statement, main points, support, conclusion, and the like. When the identified discourse elements are presented to the student, the student may, more easily, be able to determine if, for instance, the conclusion follows, conceptually, the thesis statement. However, a teacher may not have sufficient time to annotate (e.g., identify and mark-up the discourse elements of an essay) each student essay and point out specific weaknesses or deficiencies. Furthermore, not all teachers have the same level of annotation skills and thus, some students may receive insufficient or improper annotation. Therefore, an automated discourse analysis application may be valuable to those who wish to improve their writing skills with regard to organization of ideas.